Robert Heinlein - Citizen of the Galaxy

He told himself he was being silly -- this beautiful office was about as far from the dirty business of slave traffic as anything could be. But as he was dropping to sleep one night he came wide awake with the black, ironic thought that one of those slave ships in whose stinking holds he had ridden might have been, at that very time, the property of the scabby, frightened slave he was then.

It was a nightmare notion; he pushed it away. But it took the fun out of what he was doing.

One afternoon he sat studying a long memorandum from the legal department -- a summary, so it said, of Rudbek & Assocs.' interests -- and found that he had dragged to a halt. It seemed as if the writer had gone out of his way to confuse things. It would have been as intelligible in ancient Chinese -- more so; Sargonese included many Mandarin words.

He sent Dolores out and sat with his head in his hands. Why, oh, why hadn't he been left in the Guard? He had been happy there; he had understood the world he was in.

Then he straightened up and did something he had been putting off; he returned a vuecall from his grandparents. He had been expected to visit them long since, but he had felt compelled to try to learn his job first.

Indeed he was welcome! "Hurry, son -- we'll be waiting." It was a wonderful hop across prairie and the mighty Mississippi (small from that height) and over city-pocked farmland to the sleepy college town of Valley View, where sidewalks were stationary and time itself seemed slowed. His grandparents' home, imposing for Valley View, was homey after the awesome halls of Rudbek.

But the visit was not relaxing. There were guests at dinner, the president of the college and department heads, and many more after dinner -- some called him "Rudbek of Rudbek," others addressed him uncertainly as "Mr. Rudbek," and still others, smug with misinformation as to how the nabob was addressed by familiars, simply as "Rudbek." His grandmother twittered around, happy as only a proud hostess can be, and his grandfather stood straight and addressed him loudly as "Son."

Thorby did his best to be a credit to them. He soon realized that it was not what he said but the fact of talking to Rudbek that counted.

The following night, which his grandmother reluctantly kept private, he got a chance to talk. He wanted advice.

First information was exchanged. Thorby learned that his father, on marrying the only child of his grandfather Rudbek, had taken his wife's family name. "It's understandable," Grandfather Bradley told him. "Rudbek has to have a Rudbek. Martha was heir but Creighton had to preside -- board meetings and conferences and at the dinner table for that matter. I had hoped that my son would pursue the muse of history, as I have. But when this came along, what could I do but be happy for him?"

His parents and Thorby himself had been lost as a consequence of his father's earnest attempt to be in the fullest sense Rudbek of Rudbek -- he had been trying to inspect as much of the commercial empire as possible. "Your father was always conscientious and when your Grandfather Rudbek died before your father completed his apprenticeship, so to speak, Creighton left John Weemsby in charge -- John is, I suppose you know, the second husband of your other grandmother's youngest sister Aria -- and Leda, of course, is Aria's daughter by her first marriage."

"No, I hadn't known." Thorby translated the relationships into Sisu terms... and reached the startling conclusion that Leda was in the other moiety! -- if they had such things here, which they didn't. And Uncle Jack -- well, he wasn't "uncle" -- but how would you say it in English?

"John had been a business secretary and factotum to your other grandfather and he was the perfect choice, of course; he knew the inner workings better than anyone, except your grandfather himself. After we got over the shock of our tragic loss we realized that the world must go on and that John could handle it as well as if he had been Rudbek himself."

"He's been simply wonderful!" grandmother chirped.

"Yes, he has. I must admit that your grandmother and I became used to a comfortable scale of living after Creighton married. College salaries are never what they should be; Creighton and Martha were very generous. Your grandmother and I might have found it difficult after we realized that our son was gone, never to come back, had not John told us not to worry. He saw to it that our benefit continued just as before."

"And increased it," Grandmother Bradley added emphatically.

"Well, yes. All the family -- we think of ourselves as part of Rudbek family even though we bear a proud name of our own -- all of the family have been pleased with John's stewardship."

Thorby was interested in something other than "Uncle Jack's" virtues. "You told me that we left Akka, jumping for Far-Star, and never made it? That's a long, long way from Jubbul."

"I suppose it is. The College has only a small Galactovue and I must admit that it is hard to realize that what appears to be an inch or so is actually many light-years."

"About a hundred and seventy light-years, in this case."

"Let me see, how much would that be in miles?"

"You don't measure it that way, any more than you measure that couchomat you're on in microns."

"Come now, young man, don't be pedantic."

"I wasn't being, Grandfather. I was thinking that it was a long way from where I was captured to where I was last sold. I hadn't known it"

"I heard you use that term 'sold' once before. You must realize that it is not correct. After all, the serfdom practiced in the Sargony is not chattel slavery. It derives from the ancient Hindu gild or 'caste' system -- a stabilized social order with mutual obligations, up and down. You must not call it 'slavery.' "

"I don't know any other word to translate the Sargonese term."

"I could think of several, though I don't know Sargonese... it's not a useful tongue in scholarship. But, my dear Thor, you aren't a student of human histories and culture. Grant me a little authority in my own field."

"Well..." Thorby felt baffled. "I don't know System English perfectly and there's a lot of history I don't know -- there's an awful lot of history."

"So there is. As I am the first to admit"

"But I can't translate any better -- I was sold and I was a slave!"

"Now, Son."

"Don't contradict your grandfather, dear, that's a good boy."

Thorby shut up. He had already mentioned his years as a beggar -- and discovered that his grandmother was horrified, had felt that he had disgraced himself, though she did not quite say so. And he had already found that while his grandfather knew much about many things, he was just as certain of his knowledge when Thorby's eyes had reported things differently. Thorby concluded glumly that it was part of being senior and nothing could be done about it He listened while Grandfather Bradley discoursed on the history of the Nine Worlds. It didn't agree with what the Sargonese believed but wasn't too far from what Pop had taught him -- other than about slavery. He was glad when the talk drifted back to the Rudbek organization. He admitted his difficulties.

"You can't build Rome in a day, Thor."

"It looks as if I never would learn! I've been thinking about going back into the Guard."

His grandfather frowned. "That would not be wise."

"Why not, sir?"

"If you don't have talent for business, there are other honorable professions."

"Meaning the Guard isn't?"

"Mmm... your grandmother and I are philosophical pacifists. It cannot be denied that there is never a moral justification for taking human life."

"Never," agreed grandmother firmly.

Thorby wondered what Pop would think? Shucks, he knew! -- Pop cut 'em down like grass to rescue a load of slaves. "What do you do when a raider jumps you?"